The Belgian-Australian startup Secure Code Warrior raises 3,2 million euro from Paladin Capital Group and AirTree Ventures. Secure Code Warrior, that is led by the Belgian security experts Pieter Danhieux and Matias Madou, offers an application development platform that helps developers write secure code from the start.

This initial capital round will allow the company to further expand its rapidly growing sales and marketing activities for further customer success in the US, UK and Europe, while continuing to innovate through engineering hubs in Belgium and Australia. The financing is led by global venture capital fund Paladin Capital Group, with a participation from Sydney-based AirTree Ventures.

Secure Code Warrior is co-founded and led by two globally recognized security experts, CEO Pieter Danhieux and CTO Matias Madou Ph.D. Danhieux has more than 12 years’ experience as a security consultant, including at EY and BAE Systems, and is a former long-time Principal Instructor for SANS. Madou holds a Ph.D. in application security, with over 15 years of hands-on software security experience, including as one of Fortify’s early developers and research architects, and more than 10 patents to his name.

From Bruges to Boston

The company has offices in Sydney, London, Bruges and Boston and provides a proven suite of secure coding tools within one SaaS platform, helping developers write secure code from the start and in-line with a company’s established coding policies. The platform includes gamified, online training that is hands-on and self-paced; a fun, skill-testing tournament mode; and a real-time spellchecker-style autocorrect coaching plugin. This enables companies to achieve faster and more secure product development, which supports agile development principles. It provides a powerful layer of cyber protection in a way that is simple, scalable and positive.

“For all the investment in application security tools, services and training, a large percentage of data breaches today are still caused by mistakes when coding,” says Danhieux. “If companies focused on engaging developers in gamified, relevant training and tools that helped them learn to code securely, most vulnerabilities would be prevented, leaving security experts and testing tools to focus on complex problems.”

“It is imperative that organizations take security training seriously, embedding a security-first mindset into their development teams from the start", adds Madou. "Relevant, engaging training is the fastest way to upskill dev teams and empower them with the knowledge to write secure code and build better, safer applications.”

Blue-chip

Since the company’s start in 2015, Danhieux, Madou and their team have built a marquee, blue-chip enterprise customer base including 16 of the top 100 global banks, Australia’s six largest banks, in addition to many of the world’s top companies in the telecommunications, technology, retail and airline verticals.

“The team has achieved rapid traction with Global 250 customers", adds Nazo Moosa from Paladin Capital. "We're proud to support Pieter and Matias as they scale their business across priority markets which include the US and UK.”